


Lost and Found, Round and Round

by Tinwoman



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: 'This Is A Bad Idea' Sex, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Multi, Post-Break Up Sex, Post-Canon, about as soft and gentle as this could've gone tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-06-09 04:46:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15259740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinwoman/pseuds/Tinwoman
Summary: Lucretia tries six times to apologize, and it never quite goes as planned.





	1. Taako

Merle had tried, a long time ago, to heal what they’d lost in Wonderland. Taako was pretty sure back then it wouldn’t work, that whatever deal they struck wouldn’t be so easily un-struck, but Merle had been all hopeful and cheerful and hey, the old guy had surprised them before, right? But that Wonderland mojo was too tough, too strong, was maybe already twined around their goddamn bones, and Merle had sighed and shook his head. Taako’s not too familiar with healing magic — his own spells come from that good arcane shit, the magical aether that surrounds every living thing and is just sitting there for the taking, if you can only figure out how to take it — but Merle’s power is a direct line from the gods themselves, and Taako’s never really been sure how Merle manages when his spells don’t do what he wants them to.

Better to just bone down with an avatar of the semi-divine, right? A lot more fun that way, and hey, a boy’s still got access, too.

So Merle tells Taako the bad news, and Taako tells Kravitz and shoots him the puppy-dog eyes, and that’s how the two of them (Magnus didn’t need it, had his brand new Garfield-made body, even if Taako still catches him twisting a wrist or cracking his knees trying to remember old wounds, old scars, old legacies of battles long-past) ended up sitting in a line on the floor of Taako and Kravitz’s house while Kravitz stands before them.

“Hold still,” Kravitz says in that calm, unruffled voice that he normally uses for work, and Taako winks up at him.

Kravitz presses a cool, familiar hand against his forehead, and Taako closes his eyes. It’s slow, and subtle, but Taako can feel it all the same — a wash of magic, divine and sparkling and simmering with power, fills his body like moonlight-soaked liquor, dizzying and only slightly terrifying. Just a few seconds of that god-touched good stuff, and the ancient necromantic curse that was curled up deep inside him dissipates and disappears like fog in the sunrise.

Merle’s watching him curiously when he opens his eyes, and then blinks in amazement.

“Oh man, it’s you,” he says happily. “I mean, it’s always been you, but now it’s _you_ you. You know?”

“Duh old man,” Taako says, rolling his eyes and twitching the corner of his mouth upward. “Your turn now, so no fidgeting.”

Kravitz does the same to Merle, and Taako’s suddenly grateful Merle left his eyepatch on; he’s seen some freaky-ass magic shit in his day but he has no interest in adding ‘watching Merle regrow a goddamn eyeball in five seconds’ to that illustrious list. Merle makes a small sound and bites down on his lower lip, and Taako has the quick, absurd thought that maybe Raven Queen magic ‘tastes’ different than Pan magic.

It’s over in a flash, and as Merle cautiously lifts his eyepatch Taako can’t help holding his breath — with him it was superficial stuff, maybe the curse won’t work on Merle’s literal missing organ — but lets it out in a huff when Merle’s cheerful green eyes, _plural_ , peer out at him.

“Yahtzee!” Merle says, pulling the eyepatch all the way off and swiveling around interestedly. “Full depth perception again feels pretty nice — thanks Skeletor. You bagged a useful guy here, Taako.”

“I’m so glad you approve,” Taako says dryly, and Kravitz shoots him a small, private smile.

“But what about…” Merle says, and then trails off. “Uh...I mean…aren’t we. Missing someone, here?”

Merle’s not looking at Taako, is choosing to use his newly-created eye to give Taako some serious side-glances, but Taako just grits his teeth. He knows it without saying it, they all know it: there’s one more of them who played the Suffering Game and lived.

Kravitz glances between them, wary and silent, and Taako deliberately unclenches, determined not to give away again how deeply she’d hurt him, and shrugs elaborately and gives a flippant, dismissive wave of his hand.

“Whatever. I guess if we’re not doing anything else.”

\------

But Lucretia, apparently, doesn’t want to be healed, doesn’t want to be forgiven. Lucretia just wants to be punished and punished and punished…

She refuses, when Merle tells her about the frankly fucking miraculous cure for a long-term Wonderland hangover. Refuses again when Taako sends Magnus to ask her a week later. After that she starts avoiding all three of them — not that difficult, in his case, but still. She practically vanishes on the spot whenever she sees them coming, inventing excuses to bounce faster than Magnus inhales french fries, her chin rigid and tucked tight like she’s bracing herself against gale force winds. It’s satisfying at first to have such an intimidating presence, to send his former boss running scared with just a look, but the longer it goes on the more stale it gets.

“She says she’s fine carrying the weight of it on her own,” Merle tells him one day as they drag a carefully packed picnic basket up to meet Carey and Killian on the hill they like outside the city. “Says she needs the reminders of everything she’s done.”

Taako lets out a snort. “God, she really has gotten dramatic, huh. Write a poem next time.”

“Well, she knows the offer’s on the table now,” Merle says placidly. “She’ll come around in her own time.”

“Her own time? She’s running _out_ of time,” Taako says, hoisting the basket higher in his arms, but Merle just shakes his head and leaves him to it.

_Humans and their puny lifespans — she’s only got another 25 or 30 years, maybe less depending on what else she gambled away in that horrorshow. Now is not the time for her irritating martyrism._

And Taako, annoyed and offended and missing her so badly he can barely stand it (they saved the freaking _world_ , they lived over a century together, he’ll never, ever forgive her but that doesn’t mean he’ll stop loving her for one goddamn second), decides to take matters into his own hands.

\--------

“Does she want this?” Kravitz asks. The two of them are standing on the Bureau grounds a few days later, under a gathering of trees that those funky little dryads helped put up to liven up the place. It’s cloudy, the breeze slipping and sliding down cuffs of jackets and backs of necks.

“Whatever,” Taako says, rolling his eyes and shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’s not like _she_ gave _us_ a choice when she ripped our brains apart at the seams. See how she likes it when someone fucks around with her body without even a heads up. See how she likes it when someone she trusts with her life does her dirty like this.”

Kravitz hesitates for a long moment, but nods slowly. The necromancer’s curse is not only cruel, it’s profane. He wants to heal it as much as Taako does, now that he knows he can, just for different reasons. His boy is _highly_ opposed to creepy curses living in people’s fragile bodies for years on end, which in Taako’s opinion is one of his finer qualities. Curses are just tacky, really.

They walk down the familiar hallway to The Director’s — Lucretia’s — office, and Taako has to blink rapidly to shake away the sense memories of doing this exact thing with Magnus and Merle (and Lup, by his side, though he never even knew to miss her). The door to her office is open, probably based on some HR policy Brad is trying fruitlessly to implement.

She’s at her desk when they enter, bent over a report with a pen in her hand. They’re moving quietly, but she doesn’t look up until Taako shuts the door behind him. Her eyebrows spike upwards in surprise before she pulls herself together and smooths her expression out into a pleasantly neutral facade. Sitting up straight, she places her pen gently to the side and folds her hands in front of her.

“Taako. What can I...I mean, hello,” she says quietly, a thread of uncertainty making her normally steady voice tremble the tiniest bit.

Taako doesn’t answer, just gives a little nod to Kravitz. Lucretia’s eyes widen the tiniest bit as Kravitz walks closer to her, Kravitz’s body casting her in slight, distinct shadow. Her throat bobs as she swallows nervously, and Taako can see her clasped hands tighten into a tense knot.

Kravitz doesn’t really scare Merle or Magnus anymore, and Lup and Barry are practically his in-laws, but Lucretia and Davenport are still wary, still caught in the animal-instinct of running far and fast away from the hand of Death. Taako wouldn’t have been surprised if she tried to bolt, or throw up one of her fancy-schmancy shield spells to shove them back and away. He’s got a counterspell warming up in his palm for just such an inevitability, ready to bitch slap that protection right out of her hand.

But when Kravitz reaches out for her, Taako watching without speaking, she just closes her eyes and bows her head. A slow breath out, a slumping of the shoulders, like she’s accepted whatever is coming next.

With a start, Taako realizes she thinks they’re here to kill her.

 _Stupid. How is she still so goddamn stupid?_ Like he’d do that to her; like he’d let her off that easy.

When she realizes what’s happening, that something inside her is blooming, is unclenching from a decade of near-constant pain, her eyes fly open, wild and angry and betrayed in a way that fills Taako with equal parts shame and defiant, feral pleasure. She makes as if to stand, to shove Kravitz’s hand away, but Taako holds her down effortlessly with psychic energy.

“Ah ah ah, you stay put til this is done. Fair is fair, homeslice.”

It takes longer with her, almost a full minute, and Taako can see her face, her whole body, _changing_. Her spine straightens, her breath comes clearer from her lungs, her skin smoothes and brightens, her hair darkens to the rich black Taako knows so well it’s like an ache in his chest.

When it’s done, Kravitz leans down to whisper something in her ear. Taako tries to hear, but whatever it is, he can’t catch it. And then Lucretia — _his_ Lucretia, Starblaster Lucretia, the Lucretia he once called sister, the Lucretia who saved his life a dozen times and then sacrificed it on the altar of her own hubris along with everyone else who’d ever loved her — sits before him.

Dazed, blinking hard against tears, she touches her face gently, as if afraid of what she might find. After a moment, she glances up at Kravitz.

“You should go,” she says quietly, and fuck him sideways but it’s weird as shit to hear that Madame Director voice coming from just... _Lucretia._

Kravitz waits for Taako’s confirmation, standing quietly next to him, and Taako is seized again with a love so strong it’s like there’s a hand wrapped around his heart. If he wanted Kravitz to stay, he would, and to know it without even glancing at his good-lookin’ skull-face boyfriend helps settle his jangling nerves. Taako nods, and Kravitz inclines his head, squeezing Taako’s upper arm reassuringly as he turns to go, and then it’s just the two of them.

Lucretia stands, a burst of pure, unadulterated joy washing across her face at how easy it is, how her joints move smoothly and without pain, but when she looks up at him her expression twists into something more complicated. What does she see when she looks at him? The last holdout against her ultimate forgiveness? The second-most wronged (Davenport, Davenport, Davenport…)? Her beloved Lup’s reflection staring back at her? Taako doesn’t know, will probably never know.

There’s an endless chasm between them now, and Taako’s certain deep in his bones that it’ll never be like what it was. They’re silent for a few heartbeats, and Taako swears he can see her working out how she feels, how this changes things, emotions rippling across that tired, beautiful, treasured face clear as day, and right as he opens his mouth to speak (what he’s going to say, he has no idea) she takes two quick steps toward him around her desk and slaps him sharply across his face.

“Oww—” he yelps, but before he can do anything more Lucretia hugs him, wrapping her arms around his torso and tugging him close.

_Oh…_

She’s shorter than him, her head pressed against his shoulder, hands fisting in the fabric of his robes. He’s frozen, completely taken aback, uncomfortably aware of her rapid human heartbeat hammering against him, her quick, shaky breaths, the pain radiating out of her like a physical presence. He just breathes, still as a statue for a long moment, lost in a memory. She’d hugged him like this once before, a lifetime ago.

 

/////

It had surprised him then too. They’d never been that touch-y with each other, before — it was one of the things he’d liked about her at first, actually. Lup obviously didn’t count, but Taako was never big on Magnus’s casual backslaps, with Merle’s thoughtless shoulder-grabs. Lucretia had been friendly, and surprisingly funny with her razor-sharp wit, but reserved in a way that relaxed him.

But one day, a few weeks after she’d started hooking up with Lup and Barry, back when she was still painfully anxious, half-terrified that he’d disapprove, she’d asked to talk to him. She’d been shifting her weight from foot to foot and nervously twisting her hands in front of her, and then as soon as he’d started to speak just blurted it out.

“I’m kind of...with...Lup, and Barry,” she says, all her words leaving her in a rush, gaze fixed firmly on her shoes. “Taako, I never meant to, I love them together I never thought they’d even...with me...but it just _happened_ , and I know it might be weird but you have to know I wasn’t trying to get between them or make things awkward or anything —”

Taako had burst out laughing, unable to stop himself.

“Duh I’ve known about it for about as long as it’s been going on, probably before you did,” he says cheerfully, and the startled look on her face nearly makes him break into a fresh round of giggles. “Just _relax_ , my dude. I love you, and her, and him. Whatever makes you lovebirds happy.”

“Really?” she’d breathed, hopeful and damn near reverent.

And if he didn’t know this was just how she was, completely unable to accept that anyone might just _like_ her, he’d be offended. What was he, Lup’s keeper? He didn’t care, as long as Lup’s partners loved her. But just as he was opening his mouth to enlighten her on the finer points of her weird neuroses she launched herself across the room at him, wrapping herself around him in a rib-cracking hug, her dopey, goofy smile pressed against his collarbone.

Back then he’d hugged her back. Back then he’d picked her up and spun her around the room, laughing and teasing and so happy it shone like fire, like light.

/////

 

 _How did we get here_ , he thinks tiredly. _How did we get so far away from the best thing that ever happened to any of us?_

She’s tense against him, every muscle tight like a tripwire, and he brings his arms up to...what? To push her away, to hit her back, to banish her from the warm glow of their shared family. He lifts his arms, ready to do one or all of those things, but...he can’t. He just _can’t_. His body _remembers_ , his body doesn’t care about betrayal and remorse and the principle of the damn thing. His body just knows that she is his beloved friend and the hole in his life when she left him behind nearly broke him, hell if she’s the one who caused it.

And for once in his life Taako just gives in, putting his arms down gently on her shoulders and resting his chin lightly on the top of her head. Not hugging her, not really. Not like she’s hugging him. It’s not forgiveness, it’s just...acceptance. They are where they are, spinning forward together and apart again, and despite everything he’d rather have her here than gone. That’s all.

In a weird way, sometimes he thinks she’s the only one who understands the worsts parts of him; they spent a century as the sole pragmatists on a ship full of optimists, the only two who would do what needed to be done, who could carry that weight on their backs, crawling through the desert facedown on their bellies if it meant surviving.

And sure, maybe there’s a part of himself he’s afraid of. A dark, chaotic impulse to rip everything down just because he can, that terror pulsing behind his ribs of resting for even a second — stop moving and he might die, if no one sees him he’ll disappear, so he has to _make_ them see, no matter who he hurts or what he fucks up. Now he thinks maybe Lucretia’s the opposite — the scary voice haunting her wants to make everything stand still, wants to stay hidden forever, and if no one listens to her she’ll wrest control from the whole damn world rather than risk being rejected.

She’s scared of herself, too, more than anything else in the universe. The only thing lurking under their beds are themselves.

Lucretia lets out a muffled, tiny sound against his chest, just one, before pulling away slowly. She scrubs at her face impatiently with the back of her hand, biting her lip against an escaped hiccup. Avoiding his gaze, she focuses instead on the rumpled mess that is now the front of his very expensive shirt. She frowns slightly and touches the tips of her fingers to the fabric, cleaning it to perfection with a prestidigitation charm.

“Sorry,” she says quietly, finally looking up at him with misty, red-rimmed eyes. “I’m...Taako, I’m so sor…”

“No,” he says sharply, shaking his head and taking a step back. “No. Don’t.”

He can’t. He won’t. There’s nothing left to say and she damn well knows it. He thinks she fucked up, and she doesn’t. She’d do it again, he thinks with another weird spike of anger and terrible recognition. There’s a power-hungry monster that lurks inside her, inside every hapless would-be loser; she was just unlucky enough to be able to realize her full potential. Maybe later, much later, he might be able to love that part of her too. To meet her all over again again, instead of trying to unsee the person she became, to erase the worst thing she’s ever done. And hey, thanks to him, now she might actually have enough time left in that fragile human body to meet him on the other side of all this.

She closes her eyes and swallows hard (savoring the rejection and filing it away for her self-flagellation party later, no doubt). She doesn’t push, though. That’s never changed. Lucretia can take a ‘no’ like a champ, except on those rare occasions when she decides there’s no point in asking and rips your mind apart with her bare hands. She just nods, her breathing back under control, her posture recalibrating, and then she’s the Madame Director standing in front of him again — composed and perfect, unruffled and completely in charge.

“Right. Now we’re getting closer to even,” Taako says finally, wiggling his fingers in an awkward wave as he turns to leave.

“Thank you, Taako,” she says quietly, in that ‘you have made a brave and noble choice for taking on this mission here at the Bureau of Balance’, employer-employee voice, but for the first time in a long time he hears his sweet, deadly, tag-along nerd of a friend, too. He smiles, just a little, after he closes the doors behind him.


	2. Lup

It takes Lup a while to get used to having a body again.

She takes it slow at first — sunlight on her skin, Taako cooking up her favorite meals, Barry giving her slow, gentle massages. It’s strange, and she’s jumpy as hell for a while. Every sound, every brush of fabric or accidental touch trips her heart into overdrive, slamming uncomfortably behind her ribs til she can barely breathe. Since when is having a body so _hard_ , so bright and painful and needle-sharp? It seems impossible that she spent most of her life just casually existing in this weird meat-suit.

But it does get better. Soon she graduates to other, more complicated tasks; running full tilt across the grassy lawn with Taako zooming ahead on a conjured stone disc, chasing Merle’s kids around until she’s breathless, laughing as Magnus’s dogs surround her with their sloppy, tail-waggy goodness. And later, falling into bed with Barry, his hands guiding her hips over him as her skin sparks with electricity and pleasure, his voice in her ear setting her alight.

After a few months, she’s even able to have whole-ass conversations without mentally untethering or walking away mid-sentence or any other weird behaviors that practically scream ‘I have had no personal contact in decades and no longer remember how to be a person!’ to anyone who knows who she is. Which, thanks to Fisher, is _everyone_ , and how fuckin weird is that? Total whiplash; too much togetherness followed by nothingness followed by worldwide fame. Is it any wonder that she’s craving a little emotional ginger-ale to settle her down?

It’s easiest with the Bureau crew — they’re like, well, not exactly family, but in-laws, kinda. Family-of-family. Family once removed. Maybe just...friends. After a hundred years of apocalypse-fighting then two decades being missing in action, Lup doesn’t really have the language for people she likes but doesn’t know inside and out; friends probably covers it.

And it’s nice, Lup thinks. Having friends again.

Today she’s chillin’ at a tavern in Raven’s Roost with Carey, Killian, and Avi, the four of them grouped around a sturdy wooden table with some sort of Avi-approved craft beer in a pitcher in the middle. The room is crowded, all of them leaning in to hear each other over joyful peals of laughter and shouted jokes, and Lup swings between nerves — it’s a _lot_ , post-umbrella — and a bubbling, champagne-tinged happiness that she thought she’d lost forever.

“So anyway,” Carey says, and Lup blinks hard to yank herself back into the present. “Magnus won’t be here til later, so we might wanna order those cheese-fried things before he shows.”

“Good point,” Killian says with a sharp-edged, fang-tipped smile. “Last time I thought he was going to choke, he was eating so fast.”

“He should just learn to unhinge his jaw and be done with it,” Lup says, helping herself to another half-glass of beer. She should be taking it easy with the booze, but fun’s fun, right? She hasn’t had a group of people to shit-talk with in a long time.

“God, don’t give him ideas,” Avi says with a dramatic shiver, and Lup grins back at him.

“Why is he late, anyway?” Killian asks. She slides her glass toward Lup, and Lup tops her off.

“He’s helping out on the Base,” Carey says. “Since the entire SAR department got shut down, they needed more hands up there, and Magnus has enough energy to count for three normal people, so…”

“Have we actually confirmed that the SAR Department was real, though?” Avi says, reaching over to slide an onion ring off Killian’s plate. “We should get Brad turnt up and find out for real, now that it’s all over. My bet is still ghosts.”

“Ghost Department?” Lup asks, surprised. “I thought you Bureau folks were anti-undead; present company excluded.”

Killian shakes her head with a small, affection smile. “He’s not serious. It’s just an old joke about the Search and Rescue department that the Director set up. It predates the Reclaimers and Regulators, even.”

“Really?” Lup asks, curious.

“Yeah,” Killian says, shrugging and smacking Avi’s hand away when he goes for another snack-steal. “It’s was very hush-hush, even for us. Some search and find operation — different from the relics, that the Director had people running all over Faerun looking for someone, maybe two someones? Not exactly sure.”

“We figured it must’ve had _something_ to do with the Relics, but whoever worked that department was totally separate from us — no contact, no communication,” Carey says. “I think the Director sent that whole department somewhere to help with missing persons in Goldcliff, sometime after your brother showed up.”

“Avi had his money on it being manned entirely manned by ghosts,” Killian says, rolling her eyes luxuriously. “Or an elaborate way for the Director to find rare teas, or some shit.”

“C’mon,” Avi says. “That would’ve been pretty dope, actually.”

“Why have a department separate from the Reclaimers, though?” Lup asks, absently running a thumb over the grain of the wooden table, pleasantly absorbing an impression of the rough texture.

“Who knows, dude,” Avi says. “The Director...well, you know. She keeps things close.”

A stutter there, in the middle of his sentence, because as weirded out as Lup is by everyone’s reflexive, almost reverent deference when talking about Lucretia, she knows they’re just as freaked out by her casual disregard for protocol or titles or calling her one-time girlfriend anything other than her first name.

“Yeah,” Lup says. “Not exactly a big sharer, that girl.”

“She is not,” Killian says with a wry, almost sweet twist of her lips. “But if the Director dedicated that many resources to it, it must’ve been important.”

“Or at least important to her,” Carey says softly, and she’s look at Lup like...fuck, Lup doesn’t know. Like there’s something shiny buried in there that Lup needs to reach out and grab, like Lucretia being an Onion of Secrets twenty layers deep means anything other than Lucretia’s only gotten worse about locking herself away hard and final like a goddamn bank vault. It’s not exactly new information, right?

The band in the corner starts a new tune, louder and faster, and before she can ask Carey for some clarification Killian’s dragging her girlfriend to the dance floor. Lup smiles, distracted but happy, and just as Avi cocks his head toward the dancing and holds out his hand in an invitation, something ignites in Lup’s head. And suddenly, Lup feels like the biggest idiot in the world, because there’s only one person who Lucretia possibly could’ve been searching for for so long.

_Me._

Lucretia had built an entire Lup-Finding Department. Or, more likely, a Lup-and-Barry Finding Department; from the little Lup’s been able to pick up from Barry, Lucretia had no idea what had happened to her other ex-lover, either. So, being Lucretia, she’d delegated and compartmentalized and taken meticulous notes and assigned herself one more massive, backbreaking responsibility that no one asked her to take on.

 _Well. Fuck,_ Lup thinks, taking Avi’s outstretched hand with an automatic, charming grin, letting herself get whirled around the dance floor. _That’s...damn. Okay. Okay, okay, okay..._

And later that night, after she danced herself sore, after Magnus showed up an hour later and chugged a whole pint in a single breath while the rest of the bar cheered, after she flung herself through the door of her and Barry’s house tucked in an idyllic little valley with a delighted sigh, she makes a decision. She kisses Barry on his handsome, sleeping face, sits down at the little desk shoved in the corner by the door, and dashes of a quick, scrawling note, to be delivered tomorrow morning.

_Supremely Most Holy Madame Director Lady —_

_Spa Day, just the two of us. You in?_

_~L_

\------------

Lucretia tries to decline, of course. There’s an art to her refusal, really — Lucretia deflects and begs off for work reasons and conveniently has her office door locked whenever Lup comes by, and if it was anyone else in the universe Lup would leave it alone, but, you know. It’s Keesha, and of all the things Lup could ask for, a hard ‘no’ instead of the disappearing act doesn’t seem like it’s too much to ask.

Finally, almost a full week later, Lup catches her at some Bureau cocktail hour thing that she’d helpfully invited herself to. Lucretia looks, frankly, exhausted, even smiling and making a short speech and surrounded by people who obviously worship the ground she walks on. Her robes are beautiful, covering her from ankles to wrists to neck in shimmering silver embroidery, but something about them feels off to Lup.

_No easy-breezy sundresses for the Madam Director, I guess. No cozy cardigans or flip flops or borrowed t-shirts._

Lup had heard through the grapevine about the healing Kravitz had somehow finagled for the Wonderland survivors, and she knows she should probably be marveling at how young and vibrant Lucretia appears again, but Lup’s not sure. Lucretia’s younger, yeah — 20 years for humans is no joke — but clearly all of her hard-won age wasn’t just from some creepy torture dungeon. Her eyes, for one, and the tired droop of her eyelids. The subtle wince as she shifts her weight from one foot to another. The careful way she holds her glass, as if worried she might lose her grip.

It’s a stark reminder of how _careless_ Lucretia had been with her body — letting those motherfuckers take chunks out of it in Wonderland, pushing herself to the brink of exhaustion every night, ignoring illness until her tiny frame was burning with fever. Her mind was different — her mind, and those precious memories, she'd guarded fiercely. But it seems to Lup that Lucretia had though her body was disposable, pointless, a needy distraction requiring an irritating amount of upkeep.

It had never occurred to her that someone else might've thought that body was precious.

 _She really does need to relax,_ Lup tells herself firmly, and when Lucretia meets her gaze across the room, she gives her a tiny, triumphant wave.

“Couldn’t avoid me forever,” Lup says, sidling up to Lucretia and grinning big enough to make it a gentle joke.

“I’m not avoiding you,” Lucretia says evenly, her voice slightly deeper than Lup remembers. “I was busy planning this. For the employees, you know.”

A twirl of her fingers, slight tilt of her mouth into a smile, and Lup nods with dedicated, faux-appreciation of Lucretia’s upstanding party-planning skills.

“Mmmm. Very nice,” Lup says, not even pretending to glance around the room. “Now that you’ve spent the last week focused solely on planning this dope-ass soiree, though, you’ll surely have a few hours to spare for little ol’ me.”

Lucretia lets out a small, lip-nibbling chuckle that segues into an obviously fake throat-clearing. “I — listen, it sounds wonderful, but there must be someone else —”

“Nope,” Lup says, loud and cheerful. “Only you.”

Lucretia hesitates, gripping her champagne flute harder than is strictly necessary, but Lup presses on.

“C’mon,” Lup wheedles. “I know you did it with Merle once upon a time — which, by the way, you’re now legally obligated to give me the full details on.”

And all at once Lucretia’s expression flickers with a glittering, conspiratorial grin, so familiar that Lup’s throat constricts painfully at the sight, and her shoulders tighten briefly like she’s holding in a laugh. But no, she just shakes her head and lets out a short huff of breath instead, one corner of her mouth curled up in a half-grin.

“Fair point,” she says, her smile smoothing into something calmer, less wild, and Lup tries very hard not to feel it as a loss. “Alright, I’ll set up an appointment.”

\------------

They don’t really see each other much during the actual ‘spa’ parts of the day — Lup’s pretty sure there are options at this place for couples to get their massages together, to giggle at each other’s mud masks and flick discarded pieces of seaweed at each other while the attendants’ backs are turned, but Lucretia had clearly opted for something a little less intimate.

 _Probably smart_ , Lup thinks dryly. _And no one’s ever accused that girl of not being smart._

Lup catches her in only in passing at first, waiting their turns in soothing, well-incensed waiting rooms or walking down long hallways toward wood-paneled cedar rooms. It’s not until she’s soaking in the post-rub down hot tub that Lucretia finally appears for longer than a few minutes. It’s the last stop on the Relaxation Train, the ‘endless’ soak in the hot tub, and it’s only here that the two of them are left alone.

Lucretia thanks the attendant as the door closes, turning to Lup with a nervous twitch of her wrist that’s probably supposed to be a wave. The spa-provided fluffy white robe looks good on her, bundling her up like a cute little bunny, and Lup pretends not to notice the way Lucretia’s eyes sweep over her bathing suit clad self before skittering away. Pretends, too, not to feel a twinge of hurt when Lucretia just grips the robe tighter around herself, hesitating at the edge of the pool.

“This is the best part, right?” Lup says instead, stretching luxuriously in the steaming water. “Some free-form relaxation after so much structured relaxing.”

Lucretia smiles at her, some of the tightness around her mouth easing slightly, and Lup makes a production out of piling her hair up into a complicated knot at the top of her head, tilting her gaze away just enough for Lucretia to drop the robe and hop into the water. A visible wince — she gets in _way_ too fast for comfort with water this hot — but then she settles in a scooped seat one over from Lup.

Lup, satisfied that her hair is secured and her ex is comfy, turns back, but once she fully faces Lucretia she gasps.

“You — oh my god, when did you get those??” Lup yelps, more shocked than she wants to let on at the sight of Lucretia with…with _tattoos_.

Not just one or two, but _lots _, beautiful and intricate and twisting around as much of her body as Lup can see. An vibrant beach landscape wraps around most of her right arm, a lush purple flower peeks around the edges of her swimsuit above her heart, some design curling around her shoulders and twining around a bigger piece of text across her back. It’s incredible, it’s _wild_ , when the hell had she done this?__

____

“Oh, right,” Lucretia says, stretching her arms out in front of her, looking mildly surprised, as if she’d forgotten they were there, too. “I didn’t — huh. It’s been a while since I’ve actually looked at them.”

____

“They’re — Istus on a cracker, they’re beautiful,” Lup says, and when she looks up Lucretia’s grinning at her, so shy and blush-y that Lup’s heart rate trips up a notch.

____

“I — thank you,” Lucretia says softly, letting her arms fall gracefully back under the water. “It was nice to have something be, you know. Permanent.”

____

“Yeah,” Lup says, grinning back at her. “No kidding. Did they hurt?”

____

She starts to reach out, curious to see if the texture of Lucretia’s skin has changed with so much colorful ink under the surface, but stops herself at the last moment. Maybe that kind of touch wouldn’t be welcome anymore. Maybe Lucretia...fuck, maybe Lucretia’s fucking _engaged_ or something, maybe she’s got a wife or a husband, or a dozen one-off lovers hanging around hoping she’ll call them back. The thought sends a quick, sharp stab of jealousy through Lup’s chest, and she has to work to unclench her jaw.

____

“Some of them, yes,” Lucretia continues, oblivious to Lup’s weird jerky hand motions, eyes closed and head tilted back, a slight contented smile on her face. “But not as bad as you’re imagining, probably.”

____

“I’ll take your word for it,” Lup says, shivering a little despite the heat at the thought of those needles driving into her skin. _No thank you_. “But the final product is dope as hell.”

____

“I’m glad you approve,” Lucretia says, and there it is again — that flirty, probably completely muscle-memory lilt in her voice that makes Lup grit her teeth against another twitterpated chest flutter. It’s just so easy, and all Lup wants is to go back to the way things were before.

____

“I bet you’re beating the girls off with a stick, now that you’re a tatt-ed up biker chick,” Lup says, manufacturing another grin, and Lucretia lets out a short laugh.

____

“I think you need more than a few tattoos to qualify as a biker chick,” she says lightly, and Lup remembers once again how irritating it can be to try and get info out of Lucretia when she doesn’t feel like sharing. Polite evasions, empty smiles, neutral responses, and let’s face it: no one does ‘neutral’ like Lucretia.

____

But Lup’s got tools of her own.

____

“That must be such a disappointment for your…special friends?” Lup says, watching Lucretia carefully, abandoning any pretense of subtlety.

____

Lucretia shoots her a look that starts wary, her shoulders going tense, but Lup’s bland smile doesn’t waver, and there’s really no way for Lucretia to keep dodging with any shred of plausible deniability. It’s always worked best for Lup — the direct approach — especially with Lucretia. It's impossible to win against Lucretia if you follow all her rules.

____

“No,” Lucretia says finally, her expression twisting into something self-deprecating, a joke at her own expense. “No special friends around to be disappointed. Not really, anyway — some ill-advised flings here and there, but nothing like what I had with…well.”

____

_With me and Barry,_ Lup thinks, and a small seed of hope starts to bloom.

____

“Their loss,” Lup says firmly, and Lucretia snorts. “Seriously. You’re a catch, Keesha.”

____

Lucretia sucks in a breath at that, hard and fast as an electric shock, before closing her eyes. She smiles then, sad and slow, like she’s savoring the taste of something forbidden. Lup watches her with a raised eyebrow, and Lucretia blinks her eyes open.

____

“No one’s called me that in a long time,” Lucretia explains, and Lup swallows thick against the sudden, hard knot of grief in her throat.

____

Their conversation meanders; Lup letting Lucretia off the hook about what exactly ‘flings’ mean, Lucretia asking careful questions about what Lup’s been up to. Both of them trying to avoid anything too delicate or painful, anything about Taako or Davenport or what the hell happened between them all. Both of them bending over backwards to keep it light, keep it easy, keep it as chill as two ex-girlfriends who never officially broke up but are now definitively no longer together can be when they’re sitting five feet apart in a hot tub.

____

But whatever peace they’ve found turns suddenly, it flips, it goes rough around the edges, because the thing is, their shared past is all they’ve got. Lup doesn’t know anything about the intricacies of the Bureau’s inner workings and Lucretia can’t at all empathize with being Umbrella-MIA for years and secretly they’re probably _both_ a little pissed at each other, and somehow the small talk dance is even worse than just jumping into the fire feet-first.

____

Which is why, probably, Lup ends up on a long, self-pitying rant about the Relics, and her part in it, and the cost of what they’d done. Lucretia goes quiet at that, an emotional wall snapping up so fast and hard Lup can practically hear it, but she can’t stop herself. Recounting obsessively how many people died because of the Relics (she was in the umbrella, she hadn’t really known, excuses excuses more pathetic excuses), almost a tirade that she can’t stop. Barry doesn’t want to hear her blame herself, Taako gets that hard-eyed look in his eyes that used to be fleeting and now is damn-near permanent and tells her he doesn’t care as long as he gets her back, and it hard, it’s so hard to not be able to talk about it.

____

Lucretia doesn’t stop her, though. Lucretia doesn’t hush her up or tell her all the ways it wasn’t her fault or make her hold all inside herself like swallowing a bomb. Lucretia just watches her steady, unflinching eyes, still as if she were carved from stone.

____

“I killed people, lots of people,” Lup says finally, quiet and defeated, because that’s really it, isn’t it? Tiny and huge at the same time, sharp as a needle and blunt as a hammer. Lup killed people, and there’s no way to take that back or make it right, and her own happy ending was purchased with tainted coin.

____

“You did,” Lucretia says, a gentle murmur above the rushing water. “And so did Taako. So did Barry. So did I.”

____

“Yeah but that’s diff—”

____

“It’s _not_ different,” Lucretia says firmly, her voice taking on a routine, practiced cadence, and Lup wonders if Lucretia says these same things to herself every morning. “You made mistakes. Terrible, terrible mistakes. But not out of malice or cruelty or indifference. You made the best choice you could at the time, but your good intentions don’t absolve you in and of themselves. Only time, and action, can heal what you’ve — what _we’ve_ — done.”

____

They’re quiet for a moment. The heat is making her a little woozy, Lucretia’s serious face so close to her own, and Lup realizes suddenly that it wasn’t just concern for Lucretia that spurred her to reach out again. That was part of it, sure, but not all. Lup needed something from Lucretia, too, and maybe the worry for her was always tangled up in that need, in wanting her comfort, her indomitable will, her clear-eyed certainty. All she knows for sure is that sure feels a little better, now. 

____

Talking to Lucretia helps. It always has.

____

“Jeez, speechify much?” Lup says, grinning to take the sting out of the words, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

____

“I’m a boss now,” Lucretia says with a matching grin, relief making her voice go a little breathy. “Speeches are my bread and butter. I can wield a powerpoint presentation like a motherfucker these days, can direct workflow like you wouldn’t believe.”

____

“Baby, I’d believe you could do _anything_ ,” Lup says, and can’t stop innuendo, the sly look, and when Lucretia bites her lip and glances back at her through her lashes, it feels like the sweetest of victories.

____

“Then believe this: we both did what we thought was right. We can’t take it back,” Lucretia says with finality, and Lup can _hear_ the regret in her words, can hear the weight of all she’d done dragging against her wrists and throat.

____

“Still sucks,” Lup says after a moment, and Lucretia lets out a small, startled chuckle.

____

“It really does,” she agrees, the steam rising around her face like a veil. “Listen, Lup, I’m — I’m so —”

____

Please don’t,” Lup says, her voice cracking the tiniest bit. “I know you’re sorry, you know I’m sorry, I just don’t want to...I can’t keep rehashing it. Fuck, I didn’t want to do this, not today. I just. I miss you. I wanted to spend some time with you, that’s all.”

____

“Oh,” Lucretia breathes, quiet as a song. “Oh Lup, I — I miss you, too. So much, I —”

____

“So let’s cut the crap and just declare a truce, okay?” Lup says, and she means it more than almost anything else in her long, long life. “We don’t have to keep missing each other, right? We’re both right here.”

____

“But I’ve…” Lucretia starts, her chin firming up like she’s about to start lecturing herself again. “I mean, I don’t — you don’t —”

____

“Fuck all that,” Lup says, short and succinct. “I want you in my life. Do you want me in yours?”

____

And the way Lucretia looks at her, like she’s simultaneously the most brilliant person in existence but also completely crazy, flickers in her memory like a song. For a moment they’re standing on that cliff by the waterfall all over again. Of course I want you, she’d said then, as if any other option was ludicrous, and Lup had been desperate to kiss her til she was breathless then, too.

____

“Of course I do. I — that’s _all_ I want,” Lucretia says, voice tight and guilty, sounding for all the world like she’s confessing some shameful desire, some secret and unspeakable crime, and in a way that’s familiar too.

____

Lucretia’s never really gotten used to asking for things. Wanting things. Has never really forgiven herself for needing anything at all.

____

“Then you’ve got it,” Lup says, letting her hand drift closer to Lucretia’s under cover of water and steam.

____

Lup laces her fingers through Lucretia’s, easy as coming home. Lucretia squeezes back, tight and quick, below the surface where no one could see.

____


	3. Magnus

It’s unseasonably warm, the day Lucretia comes up for her first-ever visit to Magnus’s cabin. Bright, too, even as the sun starts to dip closer to the horizon, and Magnus couldn’t be happier. Both that the weather is nice enough that he can drag her up to the nearby hiking trails, and that, barring an earth-shattering tragedy, this get-together was actually, finally happening.

They’d arranged the trip ages ago — right after Killian and Carey’s wedding, buzzed on champagne and love and dancing — but turns out post-avoided apocalypse times are pretty hectic for all involved. He would get pulled away for a commission and they’d reschedule, then she’d get pinged with some world-saving organizational thing and they’d reschedule again, and with one thing or another they would keep apologizing and pushing it back and suddenly nearly a year had gone by and the cabin wasn’t even new anymore. It’s not like they never saw each other – there were group dinners here and there, and fancy events that they kept getting invites for, and they do share most of their family and friends after all, but nothing just the two of them. Nothing like what he’d been wanting, which was just to spend some time with her away from the Bureau and the jagged-edged politeness and brittle walking-on-eggshells smiles and everything else that had gotten so twisted up between them.

Magnus had wondered if some of Lucretia’s scheduling hiccups had been as urgent as she’d claimed, but then again, maybe she’s been wondering the same thing about him. He’s not even sure himself – he knows he wants to see her, and he’s sure she wants to see him, but it’s all just... _different_ , now. It would be easier, he knows, to let them both continue on with their Plausible Deniability Square Dance of never quite managing to see each other ever again, but fuck that, right? He misses her, and he _knows_ she misses him.

So persistence wins again, and Magnus is happily puttering around the kitchen, doing some last-minute reshuffling of mugs and potted plants and random scribbled To Do lists when finally, _finally_ , there’s a firm, soft knock at his door.

Johan’s already there, barking excitedly as his tail thwumps against the wooden floorboards. Magnus doesn’t hesitate; just whips the door open and lets it bang against the wall, grinning big and wild.

And there she is; standing on the other side of his door with a wine bottle clutched in one hand, her other still raised in mid-knock. She looks a little taken aback at his abrupt door-answering technique, but the glow of happiness on her face wipes away the surprise. Her hair is twisted up into a knot at the top of her head, and she’d ditched her fancy-schmancy silver robes for sturdy boots, some sort of fleece-y jacket, and…

“Cargo shorts?” Magnus says with a loud laugh, and Lucretia’s lips twitch into a small, self-conscious grin.

“It’s nice out, and you said there’d be hiking involved!” she says, holding up both hands in a mock-defensive pose, the bottle of wine dangling loosely from her fingers.

“Still,” Magnus says, raising an eyebrow, delighted.

For the first time in as long as he can remember (sticky wicket, that one — what he remembers and not-remembers and re-remembers all over again — but Magnus has had time to get comfy with lumping everything all together), Lucretia looks comfortable, and that sends a spark of warmth flaring in his chest.

“Well, you’re clearly a bad influence,” she says crisply, and he can’t exactly argue with that, can he?

He ushers her inside, closing the door behind her, and when he turns back the expression on her face is close to wonder.

“You...you built all of this?” she says, eyes wide, craning her neck as if trying to see every angle all at once.

“Yep!” he says, proud and pleased and grateful in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time.

In all their long years together, he could count on two hands the number of times he impressed Lucretia. Or any of them, really. They love him, they admire him, but, you know; ship full of geniuses, and then him, getting just high enough marks on the entry test to qualify. The muscle. Useful, beloved, but exactly blowing anyone’s mind with his feats of intellectual mastery. Magnus doesn’t mind, or at least doesn’t mind in any real way. He’s had a century to work out how he feels and find peace in his own abilities.

But this. Now. The look on her face — starry-eyed, like he’d built the dang moonbase or something — it’s like a cup of hot cocoa on a cold day, and he bites his lip to keep from looking too overjoyed.

He gives her the tour, showing her the overflowing garden out back, Johan bounding alongside of them. Lucretia’s smiling and laughing, asking a question here or there about a specific vegetable, or the small bookshelf crammed with more objects than books, and Magnus is momentarily taken aback at the flood of deja-vu. A bizarre cocktail of emotion, swinging back and forth between ‘this is entirely weird to have Madame Director teasing me about my semi-ironic collection of bear figurines’ and ‘ah yes, Lucretia squatting on her heels in the dirt — this is the home I’ve been missing’.

Magnus hasn’t really figured out how to fuse the two of them — Madam Director, and Lucretia — in his mind. They’re like overlays in his mind, like blurred figures, and as much as he wants to spend time with her it’s sending him more off-kilter than he’d expected. He admired the Director but he didn’t know her, was in fact pretty dang intimidated by her; he loved Lucretia and knew every single thing about her, until she slammed that shiny red ‘forsake’ button on him, and the rest of them, and herself.

Herself, most of all.

“Magnus?”

He blinks hard, shaking his head to clear the fog away. Lucretia’s frowning slightly, the pinch of her eyebrows making the vertical line between them stand out even more.

“Sorry! Just…just a bit distracted,” he says.

She’s standing up straight now, the setting sun flooding half her face in a golden glow, her black-again hair glimmering with the same liquid light. Just Lucretia, regular same-old Lucretia, now.

“It’s just kind crazy, is all. Seeing you here,” he says, and regrets it almost as soon as the words leave his mouth.

Something shifts behind her eyes, her shoulders tightening, her whole face firming up into something solemn and serious, and just like that — boom. Madame Director again. Goofily dressed Madame Director, but still.

“I know,” she says quietly, something like resignation in the soft tone. “Magnus, if this is too – if you want me to leave, I –”

“What?” he says, loud enough that Johan barks in alarm, and a few birds that had been cozying up on his roof take to the air above them. “That’s — no, that’s not what I meant at all!”

_Just what I was afraid of_ , he thinks, a fizzle of frustration thrumming in his throat. _One wrong word, and she’s ready to bolt. Well, fuck that noise. Not this time._

“Perhaps not, but I –” she says, giving a bare shake of her head. Her dark eyes are calm when she meets his gaze, her voice steady, but her back is straight and tense as a tripwire. She’s not fooling him, not this time.

“No. No buts,” Magnus cuts in, reaching out and placing his hands gently on her shoulders, willing her to relax. “And please note how serious I am being here by refusing to giggle at that excellent wordplay.”

He’s angling for a laugh, but he’ll take the tiny half-smile he gets from her, no matter how reluctant or sad.

“Magnus, I…” she takes a breath, looking like she’s gearing up for something heavy and heartbreaking and completely, _totally_ unnecessary.

“C’mon, Lucy,” he says, betting on the nickname stopping her short. “let’s just – let’s opt out of the Big Feelings Chat for tonight, okay?”

“I – what?” she says, confusion relaxing the lines in her body, and Magnus runs a hand through his hair, making it stand on end in a way that always made her laugh. More than willing to play the fool if that’s what it takes.

“Just…I dunno. Let’s push back getting all weepy about everything for another night, okay?” he says, squeezing her shoulders as hard as he dares. “Food should be here in half an hour, and then I wanna show you the trails while there’s still some light in the sky, and if _you_ start crying, then _I’ll_ start crying, and it’ll just be a mess. Okay?”

This time she does laugh, a short, startled chuckle, and when she reaches up to wipe at her eyes he decides to find a scuff on his shoe that needs his full attention for a few seconds, releasing her with a final squeeze. Somewhere in the distance, a low, musical bird call echoes through the trees, eerily similar to a creature from their lost planet.

When he peeks back up at her, she’s dry-eyed and still, arms folded over her chest.

“I just…” she says softly, and it _hurts_. It hurts him to hear her like this.

“I know,” he says. “I know you love me, and the rest of our weird-o family, okay? You were trying your best."

The wind blows out from the west, warm and fragrant with the scent of the pine trees over the hills. The sky is getting darker on the edges, and Magnus breathes out slow and even, giving her the time and space she’s always needed.

"I — thank you," she says, quiet and reverent, and for a moment she looks like the Lucretia he met over a century ago — young, unsure, and almost painfully shy.

“Besides, otherwise I never would’ve met Julia!” he says, walking back to the house and waving for her to follow.

It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to — the thought of Julia. He wonders, pulling some mugs down and setting them on the table before tossing the wine opener to Lucretia, if it’s because now he has has family back again, has people surrounding him with the unmistakable glow of familiarity and love. _Julia would’ve wanted that. Julia wouldn’t’ve wanted me to be so alone._

It’s even warmer inside the cabin — he hadn’t wanted to start a fire yet, but as he closes up the windows in the kitchen he wonders if he’s got time to get it crackling before the food comes. The world outside looks dark from in here, cozying up the room even more, and he decides they’re fine as they are. Better to just sit and relax with her, ‘perfect is the enemy of good’, blah blah blah.

“She really was something, wasn’t she?” Lucretia says behind him, her voice floating over the splash of what sounds like a generous amount of wine in each mug.

“Wait, you knew her??” Magnus asks, whirling around to stare at Lucretia, floored and amazed and feeling slightly silly now that he thinks about it.

“Of course,” Lucretia says with a blink and tiny tilt of her head. “I thought you knew — I met her whole family. I mean, I spent some time with most people at Raven’s Roost, before I…to, to make sure you’d be safe.”

A little stutter there, a patch job to paper over the really bad things, but Magnus is too distracted by the thought of Julia and Lucretia in the same room to even feel the twinge of buried pain.

“What, uh — what did you think of her?” Magus asks, suddenly desperately happy to be talking to someone, _anyone_ , who had known Jules.

He plunks himself down on the chair nearest to him, ignoring the creak of wood, and leans toward Lucretia with his hands wrapped around the chipped mug. Watches as Lucretia takes a sip of her wine, with that thoughtful, ‘I am rifling through the vast library of my photographic memory’ look on her face.

“Well, she was beautiful, obviously. Don’t have to tell you that,” she says finally, with an almost sly glance at him. “The first time I saw her she was working at the forge. Soot in her hair and streaked across her face, but somehow that made her even lovelier.”

“Right?” Magnus says reminiscently. “She looked great no matter what she was wearing, but I always thought she was prettiest when she was working.”

_Jules always liked having something to focus on_ , he thinks, remembering the way she used to nibble on her lower lip when she was concentrating on a particularly tricky commission. Magnus had been happy to just watch, to offer help when it was requested but letting her do the thinking.

“She loved what she did, I think,” Lucretia says, settling back into her chair with a slight but distinctive slouch, getting comfortable, her spine bending. “That shone out of her.”

“Plus, her arms,” Magnus said, remembering with a sweet pulse of love and a tiny bit of near-forgotten heat the way Julia looked in the summer, hauling iron or hoisting a bag of feed over her shoulder. The shimmer of sweat on her skin, the confident movements of her body — he was lost, totally lost, from the first time he ever saw her.

“That too,” Lucretia agrees with a grin. “Strong — her body, and her spirit. Unbreakable, in a way I’d never seen before, but with a kindness that was like...light. The way she talked to people, she made them feel good. Special.”

Magnus nods, his throat going thick with the things he’s not saying, the things he can’t say. He’s barely talked about Julia, and to hear Lucretia reel off things he saw in his wife makes his breath catch, ragged and half-formed. _How did this never occur to me, that Lucy knew Jules?_

“...and funny!” Lucretia’s still talking with a soft, happy smile. “That’s the other thing that struck me — she was very witty.”

“Totally,” Magnus says, something in his chest tightening almost painfully as the memories wash over him like the tides of the sea — he’s in love, he’s still in love after all this time. “At our wedding — she was cracking everyone up, even the stodgy old tailor was smiling, and he was impossible to please...”

Something changes in Lucretia’s face, a shift in her mouth and eyes, and Magnus trails off.

“What?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at the odd, guilty look on her face.

“Nothing,” she says hastily. “I just...you should probably know...I...I was there. At your wedding.”

Magnus’s mouth falls open, shock sticking in his throat like an ice cube.

_What...how…?_

“Wait, _really_?” he says, louder than he meant to, jerking forward so quickly his knee bangs uncomfortably up against the underside of the table. “ _Where_? I thought I talked to everyone that day — how did I miss you??”

Lucretia, at his wedding — it’s another blurred out spot on his own memories, another Director/Lucretia double-whammy, but not so bad this time. Because duh, obviously she was there, right? Even if he didn’t know to look for her.

“I — I was in the back. I didn’t stay long,” Lucretia says, meeting his gaze with just the tiniest hint of tension in her stiffened shoulders. “I just wanted to — I just wanted to be there. For...for all of us.”

_All of us who couldn’t be there_ , he finishes in his head, and once again tries to hold the two halves of life together without shattering either one. He’d never have met Julia if not for Lucretia’s memory wipe, but he impossibly wishes his family could’ve been there anyway. Homesick for a place that never existed at all.

“That’s — that’s — wow,” Magnus says slowly. “Lucy, I — thank you. Thank you for not...for not missing it.”

“Oh Magnus, of _course_ I didn’t miss it,” Lucretia says, her expression relaxing, smoothing back into the pleasure of reminiscing about a treasured memory. “I...well, I left right after the ceremony — I didn’t want to intrude, and you didn’t even know me, of course, but...but nothing could’ve kept me away.”

Magnus doesn’t say anything for a moment, instead reaching out to take her hand. And for once Lucretia doesn’t pull away from his touch, doesn’t retreat into herself or slide on her Madame Director mask. For once she just holds his hand, too.

“I mean, it _was_ the social event of the season, right?” Magnus says after a long moment, giving her a final squeeze before releasing her and moving his hands back to his neglected mug.

“Truly. You were — goodness, you were so handsome, and so happy.” Lucretia’s smiling again; a sweet, unselfconscious smile, and Magnus takes a moment to mentally high-five himself for pushing to set this whole thing up.

_We both needed this_ , he thinks happily, and is half-tempted to say just that, but everything’s so nice right now. Maybe better to not risk it, and after all, he’s the one who said no big Feelings Talks.

“Plus the punch was kick-ass, wasn’t it?” he says instead, running a hand through his hair to scratch behind his ears.

Lucretia blinks, then laughs out loud, startled and dorky and so familiar Magnus laughs along with her from sheer surprise.

“It _was_!,” she exclaims. “What was _in_ that stuff? I’ve never had anything better than the punch at your wedding.”

“Don’t tell Taako, he’s get all offended,” Magnus says, and at the exact moment her face falls there’s a knock at the door.

_Saved by the delivery man, you chucklefuck_ , Magnus berates himself as he jumps up to get the door. _No Taako Talk, idiot._

But she’s fine, or at least super-practiced at looking fine, when he brings the food back. By silent, old-school, mutual agreement, they change the subject as Magnus rustles up some plates and Lucretia takes another hasty swallow of her wine. Johan makes a helpful appearance at the smell of the food, and Magnus gives a full-body sigh of relief when Lucretia starts giggling at Johan’s expression of naked doggy yearning.

The takeout is delicious — some new spicy, DIY food that’s all the rage these days — and that’s enough to get them over Awkwardness Hump and into better, less dicey territory. Merle and his kids, Angus and his classes, all the threads that still connect them after a decade apart. She asks lots of questions about his life, about carpentry, about all the different things he’s learned over the years; it feels good to tell her, even if those accomplishments feel like a lifetime behind him.

After dinner, he drags her out the door and up the hills to the west, promising her a good view. She grumbles good-naturedly, complaining about him waiting until after the sun went down to go tromping around in the woods, but ultimately allows herself to be corralled. Even sends up some of her fancy, glow-y orbs to illuminate the way, drenching them both in sparkling, silvery light.

It’s worth it, when they get to the top.

The whole city is spread out below them, lights from the houses twinkling in the lush darkness of the surrounding woods. The sky is huge above them, tilting down and around until it looks like a mirror to the village, and when he glances over at her, her eyes are wide and glittering with the reflected sparkle.

“Oh,” Lucretia whispers. “Oh, this is beautiful.”

She waves her hand and the glowing orbs around them extinguish; the night air settles against them like a shawl around their shoulders.

“Yeah?” he says, grinning down at her.

“Very, very beautiful,” she says in a soft, barely-there voice, and Magnus suddenly wishes he’d pulled some wacky, ill-advised, sitcom shenanigans to get Taako, or Davenport, or Barry here with them.

They couldn’t still be angry with her if they saw her like this. Gentle and still, fingertips twitching as if to reach for her trusty journal, her face awash in starlight — it’s _Lucretia_. He knows she fucked up, but c’mon. They’re family, and the more time that passes the more worried Magnus gets that this rift in the middle of his family won’t ever be healed, or at least not in time to matter.

Because soon — very soon, to the Fountain of Youth, century-hopping, perma-regenerating IPRE crew — Lucretia will die. She won’t go missing, she won’t be isolated in her office or overworked to exhaustion or suspended in undead lich form; she’ll be _dead_ , and gone, and then it’ll be too late for any of them to make it right ever again.

Sometimes Magnus thinks he’s the only one of his family who understands that — the permanence of death. He hadn’t, either, until the love of his life was buried in the cold, hard ground. There’s something death, sure, but it isn’t _life_. It isn’t this, standing next to his beloved friend and watching her watch the stars.

They deserve this life too. All of them, together.

“Ready to go back?” he asks after a few more long, crystalline moments, and she turns to him with a smile.

“Yes,” she says, sighing with what he thinks is mostly happiness and maybe just a tiny bit of wistful regret. “I suppose so.”

And so he leads her home again; down the hill, through the dark and tangled woods, back to the soft glow of his cottage.


	4. Barry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the rating change, babes!

There’s time for pretty much everything, after they save the world. More time than Barry ever could’ve imagined, being human and ‘temporally challenged’, as Merle used to say. Time to negotiate the Raven Queen for amnesty on the whole lich thing and end up with a pretty sweet gig, time to recollect his fractured sense of self, time to repatch what he knew about his long, long years as an undead spectre. Most importantly, time to draw Lup back into her body after she’d spent so long as spirit, trapped in a void. Time to trace the slope of her eyebrow with reverent fingertips, time to feel her heartbeat at his back when she curls up behind him at night.

Almost perfect. Almost complete.

Almost.

He doesn’t see Lucretia much at first. She locks herself up in her moonbase office for days, weeks at a time, though Magnus mentions her appearing alone on the quad at four in the morning in passing. She’s never been a great sleeper, and Barry has to bite down hard on his tongue to keep from suggesting that Magnus bring her some nettleleaf tea — she won’t make it on her own, hates the taste, but it usually helps her stay asleep if she has a cup before bed.

 _No_ , he thinks. _She’s a goddamn adult who can drink her tea without me coddling her. Not after everything she’s done._

But he can’t help keeping an eye out for her all the same. It’s habit, at this point — Lucretia Tracking was the only way he could stay alive during his Dead Years. Haunting her every step, his sorrow and his rage tethering him to the only person who had any clue to keep searching for Lup, and he finds it’s almost strange to not be keeping careful, hidden tabs on her movements or her plans.

She’s around a bit more after Taako talks Kravitz into the Wonderland Cure — something between them had healed, or at least was no longer pulsing angry and crimson, and everyone else seems to take their cue from that. Merle invites her for dinner with the kids, she meets up with Magnus sometimes in his little cottage on the cliff. Lup doesn’t reach out at first, but he’d be blind not to see the looks, the slight way she leans toward Lucretia like hearing a favorite song again for the first time in years. He doesn’t bring it up, not wanting to corner Lup into saying something she doesn’t mean, but as usual Lup is two steps ahead of him.

“So Bar,” Lup says one morning, while the two of them are still wrapped together in bed sheets and mid-morning light. She’s curled up under his arm, resting her head on his chest, and he strokes two fingers down the elegant line of her spine.

“Hmmm?” he says, and he can the deep breath she draws into her lungs.

“About...about Lucretia,” Lup says, her voice deceptively casual, and Barry cranes his head to press a kiss against her soft hair.

“Yeah?” he says, and he it’s not like he doesn’t know what’s coming, but he’s still grateful that she’s so willing to talk it through in the open air.

“So I know...I know everyone’s still, you know,” Lup says, uncharacteristically hesitant. “Pretty pissed with her. Or, I dunno. Davenport is, and Taako’s better but, you know. It’s Taako. And...and you…”

“Yeah,” he says gently, because he never wants to lie to Lup; he’s still so furious with Lucretia, so hurt by what she did to them all, that he catches himself biting his lip hard enough to bleed. Or, even more confusing, having to physically hold himself in place to keep himself from sprinting over to her office to scream at her, to rage and cry and make her understand what she did.

“But I’m...not,” Lup continues, tilting her face up, sunlight spilling across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. “Maybe it’s a post-umbrella limbo thing, but even when I try I don’t feel it. I mean, we fucking won, babe! We beat the motherfuckin’ Hunger, together!”

“That we did,” Barry agrees, one corner of his mouth pulling up in a half-grin, and some of the tension flows out of Lup’s shoulders.

“And you know. She tried her best. She fucked up, but not out of malice, or thoughtlessness, or anything less than all the love in her giant nerd heart,” Lup says, with the faintest trace of tenderness.

It’s true, he knows it’s true. _But – but –_

“That’s...” Barry sighs, trying to work his feelings toward Lucretia into coherent words, into something other than heat streaks of formless rage and grief. “I understand, but there’s just so _much_ there. Between us, I mean. When you were gone...and she didn’t even _tell_ me. How could she keep something like that from me?”

“I know,” Lup says gently. “And listen, you don’t have to. But if you’re okay with it, I want to...try. Again. With her.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, luxuriating in Lup’s breath, the press of her skin, the fucking miracle of her return to him, and to all of them. He’d been alone for so long, it had nearly broken him. And now she’s back. For Lup it’s the reverse — they’re the ones who are back in her life, and he’s certain that nothing matters more to her than that.

“Okay,” Barry says, still smiling, and he means it. He’s not jealous, at least not in the way that most people might understand. He gets it — why Lup doesn’t want to let her go — but he just... _can’t_. He can’t get there with Lucretia, even with Lup showing him the way.

“Yeah?” Lup says, hoisting herself up on an elbow and looking down at him with beautiful, hopeful eyes.

“Yeah, babe,” he says, smiling back at her, and tugs her down for a kiss.

\--------------

They don’t talk it about it much — Lup lets him know when she’s going out to see her, but he doesn’t ask about what they do together and she doesn’t volunteer. He’s curious, in a way, but he’s not sure if his questions would be welcome. And if he’s being honest, he’s not sure what he’d say if Lup did that eyebrow-raise-y thing told him that if he’s so interested, he could always come along and find out for himself. It’s actually weirdly comforting, knowing that Lup’s getting some extra attention and affection — he’s not sure of much about Lucretia anymore, but he trusts in her love for Lup, at least.

Then, a few months later when he comes home a little early from his trip out to the Blackthorn Forest, he gets to see for himself.

A warm breeze blows past him when he walks in the door; Lup must be out on the back porch with the windows thrown open, letting in the late summer sunshine. Dropping off his books and untangling himself from his jacket, he stretches his arms over his head until his back cracks, idly considering dinner options.

When he sees Lucretia on his back porch, he stops so hard his teeth clack together.

She’s sitting next to Lup, both of them looking out over the sandy cliffs, their heads bent toward each other. Lucretia has her arm draped around Lup’s shoulders, with Lup curled up cozily next to her, two wine glasses sitting forgotten to the side. And all at once a wave of homesickness rises in Barry’s chest for the life he almost had, for the happiness that had slipped through his fingers and kept taunting him with mirage-like closeness.

The porch door gives an unmistakable creak as he opens it, and before he can even think of what to say Lucretia jolts up, twisting away from Lup and scrambling to her feet with a stricken expression.

“Oh!” Lucretia gasps, one hand flying to her throat. “Oh, I’m sorry –”

“For what? I invited you here,” Lup says, and maybe everyone else in the universe would be fooled by her deliberately relaxed posture, but Barry sees the wariness in her eyes.

“Right,” Lucretia says breathlessly, her gaze skittering away from his face. “Of course. Well I should go.”

“Let me walk you down to the village so you can use their transpo circle,” Lup suggests with another quick glance at Barry.

 _Say something, Bluejeans. Anything._ But Barry’s throat is tight and thick, his pulse pounding in his temples, and he couldn’t speak even if he wanted to.

“No, no, that’s very — but I can't, of course,” Lucretia babbles, an edge of barely-contained panic creeping into her voice as she picks up her staff, still carefully avoiding eye contact. “Thank – I mean, sorry – I mean, I – I have to go.”

And with a swirl of her signature, silvery arcane mist, Lucretia disappears on the spot.

Lup stands, grabbing the mostly-full wine glasses on her way and turns to him. “Sorry, babe — I didn’t mean to spring her on you like that.”

Barry shakes his head, still reeling internally from seeing Lucretia — _Lucretia_ — on his porch. “No, that’s — I didn’t think I’d make it home til midnight, so that’s...that’s fine.”

“It isn’t,” Lup insists. “You shouldn’t be surprised like that. Especially not at home.”

“I’m fine,” Barry says, shaking his head to clear it and smiling at her. “Really. Here, gimme one of those, if you’re just gonna dump ‘em.”

Lup laughs, and hands over one of the wine glasses. “You know, you can just...talk to her.”

Barry sighs, taking a long sip of the slightly-too-warm wine, enjoying the taste on his tongue. “I don’t think anything good would come from that.”

“Okay,” Lup says simply, pushing her long hair behind her shoulder with her free hand. “You don’t have to, obviously. But, you know. You can. She’s not locked up in a tower, and neither are you. It just — it might be easier, for both of you. To talk, and find out that talking won’t actually kill you.”

The breeze picks up from the ocean, sending a pleasant whisper across his face. “I — yeah. I know. I know.”

\--------------

Four days later, he’s knocking on the door to her office.

The Bureau’s different than he remembers. Back then, he’d been able to drift through these spaces completely unseen, to observe what was happening in her little nexus of power and control, to watch while she built this entire operation from the ground up. She hadn’t always been able to turn him away with the holy, bane of the undead shield (and isn’t that just the Lucretia goddamn special — Big, All-Purpose Shield), but once she realized he was still around, still present...well.

He hadn’t been back for a long time, after that. Not until the very end.

Lucretia answers after a pause, shuffle of parchment like she’d just finished off a stack of paperwork.

“It’s open,” she says, her voice muffled slightly.

The door shuts heavily behind him, and she glances up. If things weren’t so strained between them, if they hadn’t spent years hiding from and fighting each other for control over three of their closest friends, then he might laugh at her expression. Ridiculously, over-the-top shocked, eyes wide and mouth open and color draining from her face, like the floor had opened up beneath her. But she pulls herself together into something like pleasantly neutral as she stands to greet him.

“Hello,” she says, formally as if he were a visiting dignitary, and Barry bites the inside of his cheek to keep from scowling as she walks around to the front of her desk and folds her hands neatly in front of her. “How can I help you?”

“I need to talk to you,” he says, refusing to play along with this Politeness Chicken game, and something like…dread…ripples across her face, so subtly he thinks he may have just imagined it.

“Very well – can I offer you a seat?” she says, gesturing to a small sitting area off to one side of the room — a few plush chairs, a loveseat, and a small little table.

“I’ll stand,” he says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

Lucretia’s jaw tightens, her eyes narrow the tiniest bit, and Barry swallows a weird mix of satisfaction — he can get a rise out of her, she’s not nearly as immune to him as she’s pretending — and trepidation that she’s about to dig her heels in. Because that’s the thing with Lucretia; she doesn’t fight so much as _endure_. Lucretia’s will has always been iron, rather than steel, dense and immovable as the earth itself, built not for combat but for resistance. Refusing to be budged and absorbing every blow until her enemies are too exhausted to continue.

“Fine,” she continues, with just the barest hint of chilliness in her voice. “What can I do for you, then?”

“I think we both need to set some ground rules,” Barry says. “Now that you’re back with Lup, I mean.”

“I’m not... _with_...Lup,” Lucretia says, her expression softening slightly. “It’s...nothing’s happening, we’re just...just friends.”

“Right, that looked like a very friendly picnic you were having,” Barry says, rolling his eyes.

“That’s – that’s not –,” Lucretia says tightly, and he interrupts her before she can finish.

“Sure,” he says, trying not to enjoy the rush of blood in his ears, the tense way she’s watching him. “Whatever’s going on with you and Lup, that’s between you. But let’s get one thing straight. We are not...there’s no we. No you and me.”

Silence, brittle and sharp, and Lucretia just stares at him for a long moment. “Of _course_ not. You think...there’s nothing between us anymore. I’m not a total fool.”

“Recent data suggests otherwise,” Barry says dryly, and he knows he’s being cruel, he knows he’s goading her, but he can’t stop himself. “You didn’t even talk to me, before you...before you left me.”

“Right,” Lucretia says, a wry, humorless smile twisting her lips. “That’s what you’re here for. Well, go on, then. Fire away.”

“Unbelievable,” Barry says, his lip curling. “You’re not seriously going to play the victim right now, are you? Poor me, just going to stand here and take the mean words after I...what was it again? Oh yeah, erased us from existence, ripped us away from each other, played god with our lives like we were _chess_ pieces.”

“I did what I thought was best,” she says, low and even, and a growl of frustration builds in his chest.

“Best for who, exactly? Cause it certainly wasn’t best for Taako, or Davenport,” he says, and even she can't hide her flinch with that one. “Setting up an anti-lich ward was just the cherry on top that shit sundae, I guess.”

And maybe that’s the crux of it all, he thinks with a painful twinge beneath his ribs. Maybe that’s what he can’t get over. Acting like a brilliant idiot, fine. Deciding that she was going to ‘fix’ everything by removing a century’s worth of love and family with surgical precision, well, that’s pretty standard Lucretia. Even making some shitty executive decision about the fate of the entire world wasn’t outside the realm of what they’d all done before.

But the first time he bounced off that barrier, he understood something about her that he’d never truly grasped. Until that exact moment, he hadn’t realized what she was truly capable of.

Or what she wasn’t.

“You — I had no idea what happened to you,” she says quietly. “You disappeared — I knew you couldn’t be _dead_ -dead, but when you...when you didn’t come back…”

“What, you thought I’d abandoned you?” he snaps, not trying to hide his scorn. “Like you deserved anything from me, after —”

“No,” she cuts in, steady and calm enough to set his teeth on edge. “I thought you’d gone mad. I thought...I thought without Lup to...to keep you grounded, that you…well. I didn’t know how much of you was left.”

That stops him short. “You...oh.”

“I...I felt you, sometimes. Here, at the Bureau,” she continues, still not looking directly at him. “I didn’t...because I was certain if you _had_ been here, if you were still whole, you would’ve...I thought I was losing my mind.”

She moves, finally; tugs one sleeve of her ornate robe down a little farther, holding the fabric pinched between her thumb and forefinger.

“And when I realized...well, guessed, I didn’t know for sure...but when I figured out what you were probably trying to do,” she continues after a moment, and he works hard to breathe out slow and even. “I had to stop you, of course.”

“Of course,” he says, an acidic spreading against the back of his tongue. “Of course you did.”

Another long silence. Another moment filled with everything that had passed between them, that had somehow led to this.

“Well,” she says heavily. “Unless there’s anything else, can I assume that’s it? I gather you’re not looking for financial reporting on the latest personale increase, and that’s what I need to finish before the end of the day.”

“So that’s really the plan, huh?” he says — he knows he needs to just drop it and leave, this is pointless, but he _can’t_. “Spend the rest of your life in this office? Show up for a verbal flogging on demand and then play the wounded martyr?”

“ _Play_?” she says, her voice gone needle-bright and dangerous. “This isn’t...god, just _go_. You got what you came for.”

“I – no!” Barry insists. “Why can’t you just – why are you _hiding_ here, then? If you’re so sorry and remorseful? Why are you acting like we – like you’d _never_ – like there’s nothing you could _possibly_ do –”

“I don’t want to hurt you, okay!” Lucretia says loudly, taking two quick steps away from him and crossing her arms tightly in front of her. “I don’t want to hurt any of you, more than I already have. And I don’t — I have _no_ idea how to do that. I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to act, I’m terrified that I’ll do the wrong thing and make everything worse. The one thing I’m sure won’t cause more damage is to be...absent.”

“That’s not a solution, that’s –” Barry says, his heart hammering uncomfortably in his chest. “So you’re just never going to speak to any of us — to me — ever again?”

“You don’t want me to,” she says, her eyes glittering with something he can't name.

With someone softer it would’ve sounded wistful, maybe even mournful; with Lucretia it’s a sneer, a twist of her mouth like she’s tasted something unbearably bitter. And another flair of white-tinged rage licks through him — Lucretia, _once again_ , assuming she knows everyone’s thoughts and feelings better than they do.

“ _Fuck_ you, Lucretia, you don’t know what I want,” he spits back at her, and Lucretia rolls her eyes dismissively, tightening her lips together in a hard line.

“Right. Because this is so very pleasant for you,” she says with a cool skim of a glance at him.

“No, that’s not –” he says. He’s sputtering, he knows he is, but she is infuriating when she gets like this. “You – you don’t get to just _decide_ everything! You need to –”

“ _What_?” she says savagely, the words ripped from her throat like a sob. “I need to do what, exactly, because if you have any idea how to fix this I’d appreciate the fucking insight.”

She starts walking briskly toward the door, presumably to throw it open and eject him from her office. _Gods know, when Lucretia’s done, the conversation is over, fuck what anyone else wants, right?_ His body reacts before his brain can catch up, and he darts out to stop her, a hand wrapping around her upper arm pulling her back.

“What –” she gasps, just a little, and Barry swallows hard against the traitorous, insane pulse of arousal that wakes his cock right the hell up (and is now the moment he can acknowledge that he’s been low-level aroused this whole time?).

He hasn’t touched her since the Starblaster, hasn’t been alone in a room with her for over a decade; even when he was in ghostly lich form and he probably could have, he hadn’t. And the feel of her under his palm, the curve of her arm at once strange and so familiar it’s like coming home all over again.

“Barry,” she says, her voice a strangled half-whisper, but she doesn’t shake him off. Just stares at him, shock wiping away every trace of anger or frustration on her face.

Barry bites his lip, hard, at the sound of his name on her lips like that again — when was the last time she’d said his name? Her eyes are wide and startled, her mouth slightly open, and all at once he’s desperate to kiss her. Still furious with her, still with the acidic burn of betrayal and rage, but he knows what that look on her face means. Pupils dilated and the bob of her throat and the subtle, unconscious way she leans into his space — she wants him, maybe as much as he wants her.

“Let – let me go,” she says after a moment, darting her eyes away from his face, trying and failing to pull herself together, to get back into whatever decades-long headspace that allowed her to believe she didn’t need anything or anyone.

“You don’t want me to,” Barry says, and even he doesn’t know if he’s trying to hurt her or seduce her.

And suddenly Lucretia snarls; tenses up and rears back, shoving him hard in the chest, her hands wrapped in the fabric of his jacket. She’s right up against him now, breathing hard and fast, glaring at him so close they’re practically nose-to-nose.

Before he can quite process what’s happening he’s kissing her.

Or, maybe she’s kissing him — he’s not sure who started it, but the heat and taste of her mouth send his brain stuttering to a halt. When he slides his tongue into her mouth on pure, remembered instinct, she makes a low, delicious sound in the back of her throat. He groans and reaches around to pull her more firmly against him, one hand sliding around to cup the back of her head, the other snaking around her waist.

_Fuck. Fuck. This is...fuck…_

He doesn’t stop, though. Doesn’t slow down or redirect or do anything that might break this insane spell they’ve obviously both fallen under. It’s just...it’s _Lucretia_ , he knows her, and when she slides her hands down his chest all he feels is _good, yes, want, more_. When she shudders and cants her hips against his, when he scratches his fingers lightly against the back of her neck just the way she likes, it’s like the first brush of fall after an unbearably hot summer.

He spares a moment to come up for air, pulling away just enough to catch his breath, and before either of them can do something stupid like try to talk about this, he reaches for the complicated clasps of her embroidered robe. She moans, all breathless gasps and hot anticipation, and brushes his lust-clumsy hands away to do it herself.

The robe hits the floor in a crumpled heap, and he barely gets a glimpse of dark blue leggings and a silky white blouse before she’s wrapping one slender hand around his wrist and tugging him toward the loveseat.

“Here,” she breathes, urging him down. “Here, here...”

He’s reaching up for her again, wanting to hold her on his lap and grind up against her (hot, wet, eager) cunt, wanting to fuck her until they’re both exhausted. And fuck, she’s not stopping or slowing down, she’s shoving her leggings off and hopping out of them, wobbling a little and cursing her shoes. Belatedly he does the same, tugging his belt off and sliding his jeans and underwear down just enough to free his aching erection, and then she’s crawling onto his lap, licking a hot stripe up his throat as she lowers herself onto him.

There’s a part of him, a distant, drowned-out part, that knows this is a monumentally bad idea. Even before, when they were in love and happy and still sex-drunk, it wasn’t like this between them. Hard, frantic, desperate to lose themselves in each other; before it was about love and pleasure and trust. This is...something else. Something they should both slow down and examine like adults, but _fuck_ , when he slides inside her she’s _soaking_ , she’s keening and twisting her hips with a fluid grace, she’s flattening one delicate hand against his collarbone to hold him down.

“I’m – I –,” she whispers, and he can hear what she’s about to say, but he kisses her to shut her up. He doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want to even go there – he just wants her on her back, wants to taste her again after a decade of denial, wants to make her come, shuddering and panting, against his mouth or fingers or cock.

Instead, he grabs one full, delicious hip and fucks up into her, the clench of her cunt sending waves of liquid heat curling tight and thick in the base of his spine. Dimly he registers a crashing sound, a clang of objects — they’re jostling the couch so much that they’ve knocked over the table, the standing lamp too, but Lucretia just moans and shifts her knees under her to get a better angle.

_Fuck – fuck, I’m – oh baby, oh baby –_

He’s close, he’s getting so close already, and without thinking he reaches for her, wrapping his hand around the back of her neck, his thumb pressing her pulse point. Grappling against each other as they race to the finish, each with a hand around the other’s throat, fucking in the wreckage.

And they don’t let go.

**Author's Note:**

> I crave a soft epilogue, my babies. 
> 
> I have a tumblr [here](http://tinwomanrunaway.tumblr.com/) where I'm constantly blathering on about Lucretia.


End file.
